A novices guide to Elgrand acquisition

[Ben Milway]

Great advice. Thank you.

 

[Bez]

Here’s my Elgrand buying experience in case it helps anyone else in the buying process.

After deciding that I really wanted an Elgrand, I found a dealer quite near to me. I had already decided I didn’t want to spend time and expense trawling up and down the country looking for my new car, so some internet research led me to the more local options.

Being a novice in the import vehicle field I also decided that I was willing to pay a bit more for someone else to deal with procedures involved in bringing a car in from Japan rather than trying to do it myself. I could also be sure to see the vehicle before making my purchase.

I found a likely candidate at my nearest dealer who were advertising it as low mileage and top quality on their website and ebay. The vehicle in question had not yet landed from Japan, it was a silver Rider model but sounded from the description that it would be just what I wanted.

I visited the dealer and left a deposit on the strength of their pictures, advertisement and description. Then, whist awaiting its arrival I thought it might be a good idea to do some further research online and signed up to this club to seek advice and information about my impending purchase. Good move.

After much reading and advice from those more experienced in Elgrandery, I discovered the many ways of checking how closely the dealers spiel matched reality. As it happens I saved myself a wait for a vehicle that wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It turns out that the dealer in question are importing low grade auction vehicles then tarting them up on arrival. Happily, they refunded my deposit without quibble when I approached them with the discrepancies I had found.

Here’s what I checked using the vehicles chassis number.

Firstly, they claimed the the vehicle had Jevic mileage certification. I checked the chassis number on the Jevic website https://www.jevic.co.uk/index.html but it returned no results. Warning bells started to ring.

I next paid for a CarVX report at https://carvx.jp/ costing £25 plus £3.50 for the translation of the Japanese auction sheet. The report showed that this vehicle was a low grade auction rating, had been repaired following accident damage and had a replacement door panel which was an incorrect shade of silver. It was rusty underneath, dirty, smelly and marked inside and full of pet hair, and had numerous dings to the bodywork amongst other horrors.

On the plus side, the recall history was complete which can be checked here http://www.Nissan.co.jp/RECALL/search.html and this shows that important recall work has been carried out, most importantly correction to the over fuelling problem which adds to the premature disintegration of the catalytic converters, and also the dodgy fuel gauge issue. But even so, this seemed to be a poorly maintained vehicle and certainly best avoided I thought, and I note it has been removed from sale by the dealer.

Finally, I also checked https://Nissan.epc-data.com/Elgrand/ which shows up some basic info on specification, but doesn’t show any spec for vehicles which finished production at Autech such as Rider models.

Further searches found two more likely vehicles. The first I checked was a white Rider but it had not had the over fuelling recall carried out and although it showed a full Japanese service history it didn’t have Jevic mileage certification either, so I passed. It had also been pimped somewhat in Japan and I was looking for something that had not been too interfered with.

Third time lucky I found a gem from an ebay trader and Japanese import specialist in Kent. A low mileage 4x4 twin sun roof white Rider with verified Jevic mileage certificate, full service history and 4.5 auction grade shown on the CarVX report with no issues reported on the auction sheet. All recalls have been carried out and on inspection I found it had been very well looked after by its Japanese owner, modifications being to the side and mirror repeater indicators, a remapped ECU and a throttle control unit.

It is quite hard to believe that this is a 15 year old vehicle, with only 44k miles it looks only two or three years old and is in super condition. As you can tell I am delighted, as without this splendid club I could well have ended up with a lemon.

Just as an addendum, when you have acquired your piece of masterful engineering you MUST have the secondary catalytic converters de-cored or fit bypass pipes or your lovely new Elgrand WILL die prematurely. It's also a very good idea to have them undersealed as JDM vehicles are bare underneath, so factor the cost of these things into the cost of the purchase or risk an unnecessarily short ownership or huge expense down the line.

Cheers for this! I just did the checks you advised and the details I got back gave me the reassurance I needed, plus also some good info on the history of the car. £30 well spent!

 

[leatrix]

Oh my word, this is fabulous information, many thanks indeed!

 

[Chloe&Pete]

Thank you for this, really helpful as we start our journey to finding our Elgrand.

 

[mr.benn]

Great read, containing more info I need to look out for, when I find my first Elgrand

Well done that man. On top of exercising the normal level of caution when buying even a UK car from a dealer, you have wisely taken those extra moves pertinent to imported Japanese vehicles, e.g CarVX and so on.

You've offered words of wisdom here which should prove useful to those purchasing in a similar way.

I note we are local to each other - I look forward to meeting up sometime and hearing more of your narrow escape

 

[cmi30l]

I wish I had read this before buying, thanks for the read. I'm still going to do those checks even though I've already bought.

 

[edzanetti]

Thank you every one for the info, just started looking, some great advice.

 

[Sammyhandro]

fantastic resources to help weed out lemons early on. Handily all the ones I've been looking at have the Chassis numbers written on the windscreen in the Japanese pictures

 

[dannyfrenchy]

Thanks for this. Useful info

 

[Curly59]

Great write up....... can you give the name of the kent dealer, trying to build picture of suppliers who are worth watching. Cheers.

 

[LeStempy]

It was Prodrift UK but they appear to only have an E52 in stock at the moment.

 

[Curly59]

It was Prodrift UK but they appear to only have an E52 in stock at the moment.

Cheers

 

[Gafferosi]

Do the dealers who are on the forum do these checks (and be able to show you the evidence) as part of the import process?

 

[LeStempy]

The dealers on this forum can all be trusted, will have proof of vehicle history etc and will be able to answer the questions I refer to in the original post. They will also prepare the car properly including servicing, undersealing and decatting. But there are many more dealers out there that will not and will spin you a yarn to make a sale.

Personally I would still go through all the checks myself and document them all for future reference and future owners. If any issues are thrown up you can talk to the particular dealer and they will put anything straight that you are unhappy with. We have not had one case of problems with our trusted dealers, but there have been numerous horror stories from our members who have shopped elsewhere.

 

[stewartypie]

What format is the chassis number / VIN. Mine is E51-101xxx but it's showing as not found on the JEVIC Search for mileage. Any ideas?

 

[dognero]

Mine is E51 xxxxxx

 

[LeStempy]

What format is the chassis number / VIN. Mine is E51-101xxx but it's showing as not found on the JEVIC Search for mileage. Any ideas?

Do you have the JEVIC certificate?

 

[stewartypie]

I am trying to verify the mileage but can't input the vin in an acceptable format on JEVIC

 

[LeStempy]

I have just entered mine and it shows my certificate. You may need to include the M or N prefix to the E.

 

[stewartypie]

This is the plate if this helps!